Need relentless criticism!! Melodic Black/Progressive Metal Track!

Gideonl

Greetings all! :?

I'm the original poster of this thread from a few months back:
http://www.guitarforum.co.za/clips-for-review/progressive-metal-track/

First off I'm no professional. I've got a Mackie Onyx 1640i in my bedroom, and that's how I get things done. (Don't worry the track doesn't sound quite like a bedroom recording)

Please, judge this track with all your strength, we'd like it to sound like Jesus' second coming by the time we're done with it, because a music video will be done for it

http://www.crowblacksky.com/mix1.zip

Some background:

My band released an entirely self-recorded self-produced self-mixed debut album in December last year. We're doing a music video for one of this track very soon, and we figured we might as well release a heavily improved version of the track for the video since I've gained a lot of experience since then (Videos are darn expensive to get done properly, wouldn't want it to be wasted!!)

Also, download the CD for free if you like (It's on our website), and feel free to join the Facebook page
http://www.crowblacksky.com
http://www.facebook.com/crowblacksky

LooneyAtTheGate

Great stuff! Really slick production.. almost too much so for black metal!
But well produced black metal is so pleasing to listen to, like Emperor.

How did you record guitars, and what did u use for drums?
I can't even crit this, it seems flawless.. I'll listen to it again later.

Gideonl

LooneyAtTheGate wrote: Great stuff! Really slick production.. almost too much so for black metal!
But well produced black metal is so pleasing to listen to, like Emperor.

How did you record guitars, and what did u use for drums?
I can't even crit this, it seems flawless.. I'll listen to it again later.

Haha, glad you like it

No worries, I've actually already made some changes to it. The lower mids was kind of muddy, and I've added some clarity and detail to the overall highs. Tonight I want to fix the noise reduction. The technique I'm currently using seems to be taking a little impact off the snare, so I'm going to have to split the snare track into different channels and apply the noise reduction only where drastically needed.

Current version:
http://www.crowblacksky.com/mix2.zip

I'll add another one late tonight.

Don't let the sound fool you, it's a very cheap setup (Besides the mixer). This was actually recorded just under a year ago. A really cheap fender worth about 4k, a vox amp worth about 6k, and an SM57. Some sort of Samson mic was used for the vocals. The drums are programmed (Massive budget constraints at the time, and in a hurry to get a solid "demo" - turned out to be a debut album - released), with probably a total of 40 different layers of equalizers over each part of the drums

TL;DR - Minimal budget, it sounds the way it does because of a lot of time, effort, and patience ?

LooneyAtTheGate

A fender for black metal? Interesting!

PM me if you want to talk about a music video. Its what I do. Unless of course you have someone already.

Gideonl

LooneyAtTheGate wrote: A fender for black metal? Interesting!

PM me if you want to talk about a music video. Its what I do. Unless of course you have someone already.

Yeah I know, didn't have much to work with back then. Alot has changed ? Our next album will be all out. We're buying about 100k worth of studio-only equipment over a period of a few months while we write.

We've been collaborating with quite a few people for the music video, but I'll get in touch with you.

Jack-Flash-Jr

Very propulsive... nice stuff. Vocals a bit buried but that's where I like them in BM ?
The orchestration is cool, reminds me of Godspeed You Black Emperor...

Gideonl

Yeah, I know what you mean. I turned the vocals up a tiny bit anyway ?

Also fixed the noise reduction, so the snare has more power now.

www.crowblacksky.com/mix3.zip

BMU

That is really good. Voice can possibly go down a bit (hehe.)

My suggestions are minor and non-music related:
- put the band name and song title into the mp3 tag so my media player can find it
- 19 Mb download. Really? 192 or 224k mp3 encoding sounds just fine to me, and more people would probably bother downloading and listening to it.
- don't zip it. You save 5% on file size but create another layer of impediment to your potential listeners. (I.e. it's a schlepp)

But like I said, that's minor. Really good work on the music!

Highway-Chile

Hi. So I start downloading and as it is coming in I see you have released a remix, no wait, yet another .........

Not to be a dick but I don't have time for this and also, these will load into my iTunes where I do not want them.

So without having listened to your clip, which by what at least one person said is very good, I am going to wait for you to have chilled out with the remixes.

Just wondering.....howcome you don't just offer it on SoundCloud or SoundClick, anywhere, as streaming only? With the free SoundClick you can actually re-upload the remixes, keeping the information and the link the same so that no matter which link they click on they will get the most recent upload. Unfortunately Soundclick only does 128kbps uploads.

SoundCloud does full size .wav's and the uploads are fast even with a 100mb file which I have done before. However, you have to pay to be able to chnage the file yet keep the original link. I just kept the free account and if I have to change the music clip only, I just re-upload the whole deal and delete the previous mix. I keep it as stream only though so the listener gets the fastest way to hear it but does not have access to my file. Of course you can offer downloads..

So again, I am not trying to be a smartass.....just offering a suggestion. Besides the upload of a 20 meg file is going to be brutal for people with a slow connection or dial up and no way they will listen to the remixes after enduring a brutally long download.

doc-phil

Very cool ? I like. I don't listen to much black metal, but it seems to have a bit of an Opeth feel to it (excluding the vocals - and I know Opeth isn't black metal) which kinda sound like Gorgoroth or Satyricon (the only two black metal bands I've heard).

inflames

Very cool indeed!
Downloading your CD now!
Will give it a listen!

Gideonl

Thanks for all the feedback! ? Good to hear that you guys like it.

Ok, here's a new mix. There have been so many many many improvements over the last 10 days (More changes at once, less new mixes), I cannot remember all of them. Lots of levels were changed. Mostly, rubbish frequencies were tightened up for clarity on some channels. Generally it should hit a bit harder than before. Thanks alot to Manfred Klose visited me and helped out with that!

Sorry to those who don't like the fact that there are constantly new mixes, but that's just how you improve a track? :-\

I've got a 6mb one and a 20mb one. The difference in quality is minor enough. And it's not zipped.

http://www.crowblacksky.com/mix6_low.mp3
http://www.crowblacksky.com/mix6_high.mp3

I don't want to tag it or upload it to soundcloud, as it's not an official release. We're keeping this under the covers for a while, the soundcloud account gets far too much attention.

Highway-Chile

Okay I don't listen to this genre for many reasons but mostly because the lyrics are to my ear unintelligible. But it seems par for the course in this style so I will just chalk it up to my age. I have no idea what the singer is saying, other than he seems pissed off, but the songwriting and how you have crafted it is pretty good. The guitar playing is very good and the section around 3:51 is great, has an almost cinematic feel to it.

For me I the mix is lacking definition. What it seems like is that the drums are way off in the distance and that there are all these frequencies fighting for the same space. I could see how this would be difficult to mix with all that amp saturation and reverb wash taking up so much of the sonic real estate.

For me there is way too much reverb, and I mean way too much plus I am questioning the quality of the reverb used. I suspect this alone has a lot to do with the muddiness of the mix. I must say that I do not understand this style at all so my comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, it sounded better on headphones than it did on my 2:1 system for my laptop that I have become somewhat familiar with and it sounded even better on my MacBook Pro crappy speakers.....which begs me to ask what monitors you mixed this on.

I have yet to listen on my studio near fields.

Were it me though, with my lack of knowledge in this style, I would start over. I would ditch all the 'verb for starters and get up a basic mix of the drums and bass and get that kick and snare happening nicely with the bass, perhaps paying attention to any areas where the kick and bass guitar are canceling each other out....maybe use some sidechain ducking if needed. I'd bring up the main guitar track just enough to hear and then concentrate on the vocal track trying to get that in a nice space....compression, tube saturation etc and then start tweaking the guitars and synth(?), bringing them up to suit and placing them in the stereo field, all the while maintaining the presence of the lead vocal. The tendency is always to push the guitars but I would watch that. I'd want them to pull me in while not burying the vocals as opposed to so in my face that it makes my ears bleed.

I would add reverb and any other spatial effects as I went, very sparingly until I had it where I wanted it. With reverb, less is more.

? I am sure I would end up with a mix that had nothing to do with black metal though...... so like I said, take my suggestions lightly.

But let me ask you some questions if I may so as to learn more about this.

Is this par for the course with this genre of metal, to bury everything in the mix and wash it out with 'verb? At around 1:36 when the mix breaks down, it sounds like the drums and synth sounds are almost completely a reverb signal. The snare is just completely washed out. And it is not a particularly pleasant sounding reverb either. Is that just an effect you were going after?

What reverb plug in are you using?
What DAW and what monitors?

In closing...... you asked for criticism and so this is mine. It is meant to be constructive so I hope something is helpful as you move forward. In no way do I mean anything negative. Overall the songwriting and how you have structured all the parts seems totally solid...the guitar playing is good, the drum parts also and I like the way you move in and out of different sections going for impact when it starts slamming again.

For me it is the muddiness of the mix. I find it fatiguing and distracting.

Gideonl

Thanks for the detailed insight, zero offense taken ?

Lyrics are here by the way, along with the original album version of the track, if you're interested in hearing it (Streamed):

You'll notice the album version sounds a little soft, and fragile in comparison to the power of this mix.

It's not easy for me to explain black metal to someone who stays away from metal in general because of the vocal style. Black metal does explicitly replace perfect clean sound with a gritty atmospheric sound. It should be very cavernous, dark, and cinematic.

- Distant drums are good, in this genre. So the fact that you say the drums are distant actually pleases me ?
- There are indeed a hell of a lot of things fighting for frequencies. This also gives it a full sound, which in this genre, is much better than a fragile, over-polished, glassy sound.
- I won't lie, I have absolutely zero textbook knowledge of how reverb should be used *correctly*, thank goodness I'm making black metal.
- DAW: Reaper. Monitors: Mafred's KRKs, various sets of headphones at home and work, and of course, car speakers.

You're going to have a difficult time fully understanding the nature of black metal. It's about atmosphere more than anything else. There's a lot of black metal that I really struggle listen to, because I've been brainwashed by sound production and its need to make everything sound neat and tidy. It's not easy to find a compromise.

Azathoth

I'll be putting up a review for this album on Metal Archives in the next week or so.

Averatu

Nie te K*K nie.